After leaving the B.C. Liberals to fend for themselves last week, Premier Christy Clark turned up in the legislature Monday to put on a major show of ...

VICTORIA - When the B.C. Liberals this week released the findings of their consultations on BC Ferries, reporters descended on the New Democrats for their reaction.

“It seems a bit of a waste of time and money,” said Maurine Karagianis, Opposition critic for the ferry service. “I think all of this was an effort to buy them some time and perhaps put this decision-making off until after the May election.”

Fair complaint. In releasing the results Tuesday on what were billed as consultations on the need for service rationalizations, minister for ferries Mary Polak said no actual cuts would be implemented until June at the earliest.

“This government has shown no clear vision forward for BC Ferries,” Karagianis continued. “There certainly is nothing coming out of this report that has a clear recommendation.”

One of the duties of the Opposition is to oppose. The other is to prepare for that day when the voters call on you to form government. So how would the New Democrats fix the problems with the ferries?

“After the election there does need to be a serious evaluation of BC Ferries,” she replied. After the election? Didn’t she just fault the Liberals for their stalling tactics?

Nevertheless, according to Karagianis, the New Democrats would audit the ferry service before setting on a course of action. “Much of the business that goes on there is certainly not open and accountable ... Until we really know the true financial state it is really hard to evaluate what else can be done.”

She’d faulted the Liberals for their lack of vision. Did the NDP have one?

“We see BC Ferries as a very vital part of the transportation infrastructure of the province. If we treat it like transportation infrastructure, the same as bridges, rail, roads, that’s a slightly different approach to the ferry system.”

Meaning what, other than in rhetorical terms?

“At the end of the day we need to see some cost savings. We need to see that the services are there for people. This report does say that communities are certainly open to some re-evaluation of services so I think that’s a good sign.”

Where would she cut costs?

“We need to look at the huge growth in middle management — 155 administrative managers in 2003, 600 now in BC Ferries. That doesn’t seem right or fair at a time when the company is really facing some dire financial issues.”

Wasn’t that numerical shift mainly the result of a reclassification that saw ferry captains, engineers and others removed from the union and become managers?

“Possibly, “ she conceded, then segued into another remedy that the New Democrats have voiced time and again.

“I think we saw that the vision from the B.C. Liberal government in trying to make (ferries) some kind of cruise ship sustainable company has been a dismal failure. What British Columbians want is real dependable service. They are looking for less of a cruise ship environment and just more reliable and cost-effective service.”

Set aside that anyone who could mistake a B.C. ferry for a cruise ship has likely never been on a cruise ship. The offending features — improved food services and the like — are actually profit centres, according to the ferry accounts.

Karagianis also repeated the NDP’s long-standing opposition to the way the Liberals had transformed BC Ferries from a standard-issue Crown corporation back in 2003 into a unique hybrid, still publicly owned but managed at arm’s length by a quasi-private entity.

“A failed privatization experiment,” she called it. So would the New Democrats reverse the failed experiment, and turn BC Ferries back into a Crown corporation?

The company needs to be “accountable again,” she replied. But: “I’m not sure that making it a Crown corporation wins us anything one way or another.”

Far from providing a quick win, restoring BC Ferries to Crown corporation status would also mean that the corporate debt, currently $1.3 billion and booked outside the government accounts, would be added to the provincial debt straightaway.

So, to repeat the question posed at the outset of the media scrum with Karagianis, how would the New Democrats fix the problems on the ferries? Your guess is as good as mine, based on the answers she provided.

Karagianis only took over the critic role from retiring NDP MLA Gary Coons a few weeks ago and needs time to get up to speed.

But with the opinion polls pointing to a likely change of government, she and her Opposition colleagues are fast discovering that their armchair criticisms of the Liberals are less germane than answers to the question: “What would you do?”

In that regard, I was amused by the reader who this week wrote that the news media should be “forcing” Adrian Dix to tell the people what he stands for.

Forcing? Like, say, by waterboarding him?

Reporters can no more force the leader of the Opposition to release his election platform before the scheduled date in early April than force the premier to say who wrote that toxic ethnic outreach strategy before she deigns to do so.

All they can do is ask the questions and report the answers, or non-answers, such as the case may be.

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Vaughn Palmer: BC Ferries has lots of problems and no clear answers, no matter who’s in charge